As vice president of sales operations for the innovative machinery leasing enterprise, MachineryLink, this MFA scholar sees the benefits of broad agricultural experience.

Tim Riley has covered the gamut when it comes to Midwestern agribusiness. With marketing and sales stints at a crop protection company (American Cyanamid), an animal health company (Boehringer Ingelheim) and seed business (AgriPro/Garst), Riley is now onto a fourth area--delving into the equipment leasing market with MachineryLink, a Kansas City-based machinery leasing and sales operation.

Riley credits his broad experience partly to being flexible in college. After high school in Marshall, Mo., he started at Northwest Missouri State University at Maryville and matriculated to the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he focused on animal science with intent to become a veterinarian. Riley said that his advisers at MU deserve credit for his ability to traverse different segments of agribusiness.

"Even though I was on the animal science route, my adviser talked me into taking plenty of agricultural economics, enough for a minor. And that's helped me in the business world."

So when asked what advice he has for today's youth as they head off for a degree in agriculture, he had an answer that wasn't surprising. "My advice is to get as much exposure to every aspect of agriculture that you can. If you are interested in agribusiness, you never know exactly where you'll end up." That's wisdom that Riley, a one-time pre-vet animal science major turned agribusinessman, has learned through experience.

As vice president of sales operations for MachineryLink, Riley is involved in building business for the 3-year old company. In one sense, you can lump MachineryLink in with a batch of enterprises born from the technology boom of the 1990s. It's less a brick-and-mortar business than an organizational idea. And yes, like many businesses of the 1990s, MachineryLink gained its altitude with venture capital money. But there's also a distinct difference between MachineryLink and many of the startups from a decade ago: MachineryLink is still in business.

One reason that MachineryLink survives is that it was born from necessity. In 1992, MachineryLink founder, Dave Govert, needed a new combine. But when he factored return versus investment on a new machine for his 1,500-acre wheat farm at Kingman, Kan., Govert decided he couldn't justify the cost of a new combine. Instead he took out an ad in an agricultural publication looking for a row-crop farmer who could share the burden of owning a combine. The idea was that Govert could use the machine for wheat harvest in Kansas then ship it to a row-crop farm in Nebraska in time for soybean and corn harvest.

The idea worked. In fact, it worked well enough that farmers who had watched the shared-ownership deal decided to give the process a go themselves--often with disappointing results.

"The problem with individual farmers who share equipment is that there are so many unknowns," said Riley. "They have to work out things like repairs. If I own it and it breaks while you're driving it, who pays for the repair? Who pays for transportation of the machine?

"These kinds of issues make it difficult to build successful relationships among individual farmers."

MachineryLink's solution is to own the machinery and act as a central clearinghouse to distribute leased machinery.

On the spot
Obviously, harvest time is critical for any farm, a race against time and weather. Farmers are wary of adding variables, like a time-specified lease, that affect their ability to bring in a crop. But MachineryLink has a sterling delivery record for the 3 years that it has been delivering combines.

"We haven't missed any of our promised delivery dates," said Riley. "And we haven't picked up a combine from anyone who was still using it."

Riley said that when a customer signs onto a lease, a MachineryLink representative will discuss the dates for delivery and pick up.

"Basically, we tell the farmer to think back over 10 years and give us the earliest date they started and the latest date they finished harvest, then we guarantee a delivery date," he said.

For a typical combine, the harvest year might begin in May on the central plains of Texas for wheat harvest, then move down toward Corpus Christi for grain sorghum. By August, it may be in Montana or North Dakota running wheat, then back down to Nebraska in September in time for soybean and corn harvest.

In between those legs of harvest, the combine is cleaned and serviced thoroughly, from cab to mechanics to engine.

"We have a rental car type check-in/check-out," said Riley. "We have operation crews that check all the belts, bearings and wear points before it goes to the next producer. The machines are serviced and the oil is changed."

Riley said that getting the machines clean is important not only for MachineryLink customers, but for phytosanitary reasons--combines cross state lines, and with the addition of Canadian customers, international boundaries. A clean combine won't transport new weed species.

The inevitable harvest-time breakdown is handled by local dealers. For each lease agreement it enters, MachineryLink contacts the local dealer for the combine and works out a service plan. It has agreements with 78 dealers across the country.

MachineryLink's current equipment line includes John Deere 9610 STS, 9650 STS and 9750 STS models along with CaseIH 2388 machines and Caterpillar 470 combines. It has also started a tractor and cotton stripper leasing program and continues to look into opportunities with other equipment.

From there to here
As his industry outlook shows, whether working to market herbicide, animal health products, seed or leased machinery, schooling helped build a foundation for Tim Riley. And in looking back, he said that it was the classes that offered applied learning that delivered the most value. "I remember farm management classes as being instructive. They had "real world" applications."

As "real world" as figuring a combine lease, coincidentally.

To learn more about MachineryLink, visit www.machinerylink.com.